Do you want to run for office? This is the strategy to win!
Using Trump winning methodology to win political office.
President Donald J. Trump the 45th President of the United States
Val Ojeda, Writer
Have you considered running for office? First, let me tell you that you don't need a degree in political science to run or even be a millionaire. There are no set requirements to run for office. With the exception of being a convicted felon. Right now, you can run for any office you want to. From school board to Congress. The only requirements for those are proof of residence and getting signatures to be on the ballot. There is no need to get permission to run from the Republican Party. They have no power to prevent you from running.
Why would you want to run for office?
Many have become fed up with Democrat take over of Illinois and their left-wing socialist policies. The attack on our children, Police, and guns. The mandates and loss of jobs due to them driving away business. In 2022, we have seen more mothers run for office representing the Republican Party than at any time in history. Though many candidates took some hits and losses, it wasn't because of what they did wrong, rather it was the lack of support.
The Illinois Republican Party is broken. It's dead. The leadership is nothing but an Island of broken toys. The political elite that shunned the grassroots Republicans. They took our money, and they failed to deliver it, supporting the right candidates to win. Instead, they produced a plan to recruit Democrats to run in unity with liberal ideologies. That didn't work. And today the ones that came up with that plan all lost their jobs.
It's not too late, though. It's 2023 and we have races to win. We cannot continue running for office the way people have fun before. It's the age of Cyber. Today it's time to focus on data and cyber advertising and marketing. Political opposition strategy by outwitting the Democrats. That's what President Trump did in 2016 to win against Hillary Clinton's billion dollar campaign. He was outspoken and never in the office. She was a former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State. She had a blank check to run. Yet, Trump won with strategy. This starts with thinking outside the box. If you want to win, I'm going to show you how.
If you haven't watched the movie “Moneyball” with Brad Pitt, I suggest you watch it if you're running for office. It's the true story of the General Manager of the Oakland A's Baseball Team in the Major Leagues that was at the time the poorest team in the league, with no star players or wins. The owners just refused to invest more in the team recruiting any star players. Beane had to make do. However, he came upon a baseball strategist that knew numbers, and together they developed a system that would build an undefeated baseball club that smashed every team in the MLB, including the Yankees. And they did it with no money. Just strategic skill. They would recruit players no recruiter wanted because of looks, cage, or performance. But they could get on base and win games. Just like a political candidate. The Republican Party is too busy looking for stars versus people who can win elected office!
Billy Beane Author of “Money Ball” with Brad Pitt in the Motion Picture Movie
Bean's strategy was simple. To get on base. No showboating or looking for home runs. No fancy stealing bases where you can be tapped out. Or passing to second when you should pass to first. You first recruit the right player. Not the right looking player and micromanaged plays. In politics, it's the same. Don't look for the richest or best-looking candidate. Especially a popular bragger. You pick the humble one that will work hard and will make a difference. The party is too busy “vetting” the appropriate candidates, meanwhile letting the good ones pass by. When that individual they finally find runs for office, they can run on a small budget and run against a candidate on pure skill and strategic thinking and win. No need to be good-looking or rich. Just the knowledge of how to win a race and to never give up!
Beane ran the Oakland A’s—and he’s known for taking a mathematical approach to assembling a competitive baseball team on a shoestring budget. (Michael Lewis coined it Moneyball.) When Beane started using math and data to design winning baseball teams, it was completely countercultural. At the time, scouts flew all over the country to identify fresh talent. That approach was both inefficient (it took a lot of time) and inaccurate (not every player who looked like a good player played well and vice versa). The same thing happens in politics: Candidates are judged on what’s seen—their resume, work experience, and how they do in interviews. But this surface-level insight is insufficient in making good politicians and leaders. Just like in baseball, great talent isn’t always seen with the naked eye.
Here are some tips from Beane’s message you can apply to your politics:
Don’t be afraid to do something different.
When Beane started using the Moneyball methodology to pick players, people thought he was crazy. Why fix what’s not broken? But Beane and his partner-in-crime, Paul DePodesta, knew that something was broken. DePodesta ran the numbers and discovered massive inefficiencies in the drafting process. So, they took a different approach. The moral of the story? Just because there’s “a way things have always been done,” that doesn’t mean that’s the best way to do things. Takeaway: Just like Beane broke the mold in baseball, you can break the mold in politics by leveraging people's data to make informed decisions about your talent. “Making a decision without data and information is like running through a room in the dark, not knowing where the furniture is.” – Billy Beane
Look at the data—not what you see in front of you.
This goes for voter demographics and voter turnout in elections. As Beane said in his keynote, “Your eyes and your gut will fail you.” A lot of what matters isn’t visible. At the time, the industry was paying for skills that didn’t have a correlation with winning. They were looking for people who never struck out. But the data showed the No. 1 skill for baseball players was actually the skill scouts ranked eighth in importance: the ability to get on base. This understanding allowed Beane to nab Matt Stairs—a player who didn’t look the part. He didn’t pass the scouts’ “eye test”—the visual assessment scouts gave players. Stairs went on to hit more than 35 home runs in a season—and currently holds the all-time MLB record for most pinch-hit home runs: 23. Takeaway: Don’t miss out on your own version of Stairs. Collect and use people's data to make better hiring and management decisions. Use election data to forecast a win. Find out what the previous contender did wrong and avoid what he or she did, and develop a plan on winning by political intelligence.
Talent optimization is Moneyball for politics.
Want to take a more data-driven approach to your talent? The discipline of talent optimization is where you want to start. Therefore, Billy Beane decides to set an unconventional strategy in order to be able to compete with other wealthy teams “out there”. His goal setting is based on the strategy he sets for his game in what he calls “an unfair game”. Beane knows that decreasing cost is the main concern of the top executives of his team. The main shareholders and stakeholders have set their goals based on their conservative approaches. To be more specific, the top manager of Oakland Athletics is not willing to take any risk in order to pay more money to recruit better players.
There were two concepts that stuck out to me while watching Moneyball. The first concept is to treat people like professionals. There was professionalism throughout the entire film. One particular point that stood out for this was how Billy learned and showed the team how to be a leader. As Billy was talking with Peter he said that he needed to treat the players like professionals. If you do this, then they will respect you and listen to you. There were many obstacles throughout the movie, but Billy talks about the traditional methods in how to choose a ball player, and it also told me about Billy Beane's unsuccessful career as a baseball player. The five tools or abilities that a baseball scout looks for are run, throw, hit, and hit with power. A guy with wheels means a guy could run. A guy with a strong arm had a hose. Each time a baseball scout scouted Billy Beane all they saw was a future big league star.
Those who follow Major League Baseball closely were aware of the unconventional way the Oakland A's went about re-building a ball club. But just like Billy did with the A's we have to rebuild the Illinois Republican Party. We may not have the money or the union support that the Democrats have but we have a strategy to win. The 2022 devastating losses the Illinois GOP suffered is because the party failed to work together from the top down. There was a split in the party. No one was sharing intelligence, support, donors, data or endorsements. The Illinois GOP had no central database to assist political candidates. They offered no candidate clinics or training. Hell good luck trying calling their phone number or trying to email them and get a response.
So what then.
Just like Billy we think outside the box. It's about grassroots. It's about organizing. Recruiting volunteers. From the seniors, veterans and mother's. Electing and appointing PCs and delivering them training and support. Raising and donating money directly to candidates instead of the party. Why should we donate money to a party that fails to support candidates?
We need to build a donor and endorsement base to share with all GOP candidates. We are currently building a central portal so that we can assist candidates and other GOP organizations. To share information about campaigns and their information. It's about unit cohesion.
We must do these things to produce winning campaigns so that we may have representation in government. It starts with a winning spirit. We are not in it to lose but to win. It doesn't take much to get going but just the drive to continue and succeed. Now let us start so we can begin to take back our great state!
Val Ojeda is a Republican Author, Media Personality, Strategist and Consultant. Ojeda manages federal political campaigns also serving as President Trump's Hispanic Coalition Leader. Ojeda is also a businessman, entrepreneur and the founder of FAMA a 501c3 Chamber of Commerce. Ojeda served as law enforcement Veteran Officer/Detective.